CITY LIFE

Life in the city is full of stress. Stress awakens you to the realisation of the hustle and bustle of city life. Thinking about the mere traffic is enough to put your stress nerves on alert mode. The easiness of rural life eludes the city people and brings homesickness to one's mind. Is it in the market place? Mammoths of traders are there at your beck and call sending confusing signals to your brain, you are left with a school of choice to select the merchandise from the team of traders. It is not a familiar place for the first timer but an intriguing and somewhat scary place. Driving in the city is another matter to be discussed on a different day, learning the art of driving in the city cannot just be thrust on you. You have to master the art! You have to be so skilled as to avoid being bashed by an irritable bus driver  and keep to your lane and pretend that you  have been doing this for a while; driving in the city I mean. It is like the survival of the fittest on the express roads, if you are not avoiding being hit by a bus, you are then targeted by a tanker driver.

PEACE IN STRIFE

I feel two walls
Pressures and insults
Warriors and mascot
Lovers and strange hair cuts

Peasants and pheasants
Instance and incessant
Bandits and oppresants
Gangsters and militants

Which way my country men?
Who sees this mien?
Allegiance with fiends
Hubris with friends

The tumoils called 'our' homes
While the horrors of strife dig up tombs
Ethnic jurisdiction dig catacombs
No ribbons attached to our combs

WAKE UP LOVE!

The hushed screams of a terrified child
Many emotions rush wild
Daily hunger for the mind
Keep shoving him a mile

The world is empty
Memories of hurt dirty
With detergents the memories are weighty
We all saw the world and the deities

Mothers can't caution their children for fornication
Without been accused of adultery
Sons can't be cautioned on flattery
Without hands been pointed to philandering

BACK STAB

With open hearts and mind
Our embrace not from behind
Your smiles was our deepest joy though blind
Every little finger helped! Faith in you bind

When you felt dejected
We had anticipated
We shielded you from being debated
Even when you were rejected!

Your strengths have built like the unicorn
Every word we say now passes a microscope of scorn!
Took away meat and replaced with corns
Barb our skulls and infused horns

DONT DIE FOR POLITICIANS!

Who do you give victory?
Politicians or ideology?
Change or theories?
Selfish acts or patriotism?

Who do you trod the sun for?
A saviour?
A reformed beast?
A rich merchant?
Who do you hurt for?

Who do your hope rise?
When they win? Who knows your enterprise?
Would they announce your name for surprise?
In trouble who will bail your crisis?

Who do you wave brooms for?
Whom do you sway umbrellas for?
Whom do you scarified the cock for?
Whom do engineers gather men for?

DOUBLE WORLDS

Strength is the show of weakness
Meekness is silent arrogance
Peace is the fear of war
Arrogance the aggression of humility

Unity is diversion
Diversion befriends contempt
Darkness is the shade of light
Brightness compliments dull

For every stroke of hate
Is a confused love
For every form of malice
Is the invocation of envy

ANOTHER MAN INSIDE YOUR SOUL

Another man inside my soul
Every emotions Strike a hole
Dandelions dances dole
Another man inside a pole

Afraid to speak double
A word is courted for fables
Though with serious pat in the grumble
Another man inside starts another rumble

Another spoils the very day
With words he could have said
Years ago he put on despair
Another man breaks without repair

CHILD HOOD MEMOIRS

Today I took a journey through the times
The childhood hues
Our street blues
My childhood memoirs like glue

Our young men have all grown
How it started, we all know
The maiden started to be pregnant
The boys started their love for cigarettes

The more we brood the books
'They' told us 'you know we are hood'!
Read your books, leave us the crooks
We will guide your hook

OFFICIAL BREAK UP

Now I see it clearly
Clay from the diaries
Pages of life as dailies
Pages of night as daily
I see the phantom rubbish

When you desert her
She weeps from her heart
The bitterness in her soul like darts
Prayers of a broken heart
Calls karma to a plight

The player in you swells
While your oil of flattery gels
All seems well
In love...All is fair

INJUSTICE

Who do I wail to?
Brothers or fathers?
Mothers or their mad daughters!
A generation lost in its anger!
Who do I wail to?

Where do I see justice?
The earth is like a flooded outreach
Everyone has their mouthpiece!
Who can fight this injustice?!

Who can save me?
Bounded hands and starved meals
The unreal heal
The jaundiced meals
The serving piece meals!
Who will save me?

FEELINGS

I wonder what changed!?

The churches stay 'chained'

The looters blend

In a twist of turn, the looters bend



The church didn't need locks

Some now silently have glocks

'Spiritist' shooting dogs!

Instead of converting these 'dogs'

They run from the hogs

And plunder many clogs

DONT KEEP SILENT!

I feel incomplete without vocal cords
Life strikes absurd chords
Umbilical severed in thoughts
Lost in the demand for words
Actions has lost the touch

How convenient would silence be
While we plunder the breeds
Sunken reeds still share grief
Bleeding testicles show great greed
I feel like a bullied king

I reason everyday
While I watch the day
It's uncommon fray
Reminds me of other days
Of how the children play

STORMS AHEAD

Am starting a fresh again
Where I built there was no gain
A new month a new rain
Another reign

I trusted you with rubicorns!
You sold all the corns
Went airborne
Decided who was a high born
Are you aware tommorrow is a thorn!?

I sold my wrappers for diapers
You became a brood for vipers
Accused me for harbouring snipers
So you could change your wiper

You even praised the Lord
That an enemy has replaced the board
All your troubles suffer severed cords!
Life hasn't revealed the scores
Wait before you lose your swords!

Am building the walls you wrecked!
Drove then. ..now I trek
Everyone wonders the heck
Always tied to the back of the neck
It is a burden...let's take a break

My thoughts has meet wills
Soon the ill
Spread like chills
Around a haunted hill
Over maribond drills
Like a dream bill
Now this is the fill

Never be afraid to start again

WHO KNOWS?

I have all but paid the dues

Out of many blues

out smeared colour hue

Incidences with sticky glue

Appears at exceptional cue!



Joy indeed has a slender body

Unsingle minds have many hubby

Beautiful problems comes chubby

Thier first tease is hello 'honey'!



Who amongst you would say you know me?

Why brew a different coffee?

Who can see how lonely?

Mixed sadness

Slender joyous madness

Sweet bitter malady!

Who amongst you?

Knows the remedy?



For a lonely heart

Silent worried lips

Confused confident chap

A silent lips that rap

Tell me who has the remedy?

To all this crab crawling only in my heart!?

COPY CATS

I've always admired your work!

How you swagger through the bucks

And my voice tweak the Dirts

while yours mocked at my jerk!

What happened to my perk?



I've lost my voice while listening to yours!

Your silver voice cures

While mine becomes chores

Do I have a choice!?

Where is my talent stores?

I've lost it in your storm



I've lost my ears listening to your advise!

Your voice is now my greatest vice

Streams of my voices dries

Unused talent cries

What have you done to my eyes?!



When will you learn copycats?

Conquered voices hide like bats

Afraid of light like rats

Slickering slim shrivel speaks slats

When will you be your own khat?



Before you lose your voice

While listening to the chores

Copying talent is a choice

Originals can never be copied

Why copy what you can't generate?

Why become choice you can't venerate?

Is good to copy....you will relegate

While your talents degenerate!



Everyone is born original!

Talents aboriginal

Everyone has that traditional

Talent...

don't waste yours being abysmal!

SPEED KILLS!

The cheetah once mocked the snail
I roll on rails
Everyone who stood hailed
The cheetah for not being a snail

Soon the lion came for inspection
Everyone was to keep calm for introspection
The cheetah couldn't stay for inspection
He saw the parade as wasted expectations

The snail laughed at his agitation
Because he will soon lose indentation
Haste doesn't mean speed!
Static doesn't define movement!
Silence doesn't mean peace? !
Quite lips doesn't mean silence!

Before the clips blow winds
The snail strength is the cheetahs flaws
When you see a man with a strength
Look at another with a flaw

Life isn't balanced
Another's fear
Could be another's tear
Another's lagos
Is another's dubai!


When a brother falls by the sidewalk
Another walks the red carpet
Time and seasons defines thier headache
Don't push then out so sudden
As the sun rotates
So does the fortune of men

LADY OF THE RAINBOW

Crimson!
In crimson soaked
Blood, sacrifices, coloured liver-red
Food is served:
Dainties- pork and all others
Pray how do you serve such
When she, a vegetarian is?
How do you save her from the crimson blood?

Buff!
Brown legs on brown streets
I dorn red footies- and sway streets
Hisses and catcalls:
Daisies get catcalls- like none other
Pray how does a nun learn satisfaction
When she, a eunuch is?
How do you satisfy daisies with homophobic minds?

Green!
Colour envy and stalking legs
You offend me with these talks, mama
Of meat- that is not meat
Your meat offends me, mama
Your rainbow colours and harsh-tags
Cowards die a hundred deaths
How do you live an abominable life?
And pray that I die not a coward's death?

Orange!
I am just a bystander standing by
I neither eat nor touch; yet, I stare
At your Dainties bulging through stuffed ribs
At your disgusting table manners
Neon lights blink right in my head
How do daisies court daisies?
And how do you quench the neon in my head?

Blue!
Your hued veins turned blue
Frustration: prey scares predator away
The chameleon blends in with spiny legs
I smile as your receding shadows fade
Why do you gawk at the crimson damsel?
Why do you stand a distance poking at your food?

WRITTEN BY:
© Uduak Otongaran
Uduak-otongaran@outlook.com
+2348066010521Photo credit: favim.com

WHEN ARE YOU GETTING MARRIED?

The hollow voices of the get married
Have other voices buried
Brutalised voices ferried
Across world's of martyrs

Feminist voices have raised like that of town unionist
These fashionista are the newest fascist
While male-feminist mien abhors rapist
Bad behaviours these days are corrected by therapist
Who needs to split roles of educationist?

Battered men find it hardest to spew thier hardest intentions
While the unionist gloat of dissertation
Have we pardoned the goat for the yam transmogrification?
Or the gods no longer accept the brown goat for its meditation?
While we burrow the young ones into agitation
Of when to marry? Do you study their hesitation??
The unionist have decided to leave the kitchen for the nation


While their painted forceps touch no desertification
Dirts and germs now dance amorous conjugation
On the flutter of disrespect for standing traditions

Wives now delegate husbandry to their men
And while we work they lord over the barns
Liberation is here...mercy can no longer cook yams
While her western accent can buy her many farms
Her christened tattoos shame the pencils on her arm

What happened to African women?
Who changed the men?
When did the titles change?


The merry makers have confused the gullible
The changes of quick choices are unbearable
Before the hunger for my rice becomes parable
These merry makers should lecture this enfant terribles!


Everyone wants to be married!
Our parents are hurried
The biological clock scurried
Away the graves of the carried


Before you stampede me into your rice adventure
Marraige awaits preparation for dentures
Even while its hurts remember your indenture!

Teach our daughters the ''trenchers''
That predation is a misadventure
Merry makers fantasy of adventure
Flies when all you see is the venture!

LEADERS OF MY CHILDREN

With clutched out palms
They received alms
Not afraid of many harms
Like a gift from a mom

Some afraid to believe
Some afraid of disease
Others scared to grieve
Others knew their beef
Reality strap to their sleeve
Awake to kill sleep

Children of abundance
Harbour ignorance
And murder semblance
Blame evil for cognisance
Sons of my mother
How did this ever happen?
Craving for alms over knowledge
Craving for help over discoveries?!
How did this ever happen

How did this happen?
They ask their mothers
Who blamed their fathers
Who had no brothers
Our mothers were never bothered

Why do we import brass?
Why do we borrow bass
Why do we chain our children in gas
Future debts in chasse
While our fathers are bent over tasse
Black mould of haste
While our hearts have left our breast!

Who started this?
Who deceived bliss?
When our children hiss
Our elders smile with ease
Who started this?
'They' say what do you miss!
Clutched hands should spread
We should be bakers of our 'bread'!
In our very hamlets
Men exist who could bake bread!

Why foist on our unbelieve!?
Why strip our greave?
My leaders! My grief!!
There is nothing Africa cannot achieve!
Borrowing is grieve
Remember our creed!
Sons of Africa! Believe!!!

THE GOLD DIGGER

Down both their roads

Good lives with codes

Loving the ode

Invasion of moles

Thier lives filled with toads



Lovers with illusion to dream

Butters turned to cream

Sweet spirits sagged to the brim

Oasis became streams

Glitters began to dim



The bounties of the vultures

shared among bearded cultures

Won like fragmented couture

Broad day owls sway adventure

Isn't this the golden fleece?

Isn't the gold digger a piece?

While trouble makers murder peace

And demand bliss!



Aside the mischievous mascara

Betrayes the greedy sclera

Greed pushes them on the naira

Greedy children filled with chimera

When will they change for the better?

Reasons they celebrate their hunger



Guide your heart with all diligence

The heart is easy to Influence

With affluence

Especially corrupted pretence

Men without integrity pretend

Characters never easy to mend

Forced men

Falls on mien

Of preys who needed a scene

To blackmail thier fish

The gold digger lost on all dish